The Boondocks (TV series)
The Boondocks is an American adult animated sitcom on 's late-night programming block, Adult Swim. Created by Aaron McGruder, based upon McGruder's comic strip of the same name, the series premiered on November 6, 2005. The show begins with a black family, the Freemans, settling into the fictional, peaceful, and mostly white suburb of Woodcrest. The perspective offered by this mixture of cultures, lifestyles, social classes, stereotypes, viewpoints and racial(ized) identities provides for much of the series' satire, comedy, and conflict. The Boondocks ended on June 23, 2014 with a total of 55 episodes over the course of the show's four seasons. The fourth and final season was produced without the same level of involvement from series creator Aaron McGruder. The series also airs in syndication outside the United States and has been released on various DVD sets and other forms of home media, including on-demand streaming on . The Boondocks will return for a season 5 according to John Witherspoon.‘The Boondocks' Renewed For Season 5 By Adult Swim TV On June 12, 2019, it was announced that Sony Pictures Animation would be producing a reboot of the television series set to premiere in 2020 with McGruder's involvement. Production history The Boondocks began as a comic strip on Hitlist.com, one of the first online music websites http://content.uclick.com/pdfs/theboondocks_factsheet.pdf. The strip later found its way into magazine. Following these runs, McGruder began simultaneously pitching The Boondocks both as a syndicated comic strip and an animated television series. The former goal was met first, and The Boondocks debuted in national newspapers in April 1999. In the meantime, development on a Boondocks TV series continued. McGruder and film producer/director Reginald Hudlin (President of Entertainment for BET from 2005–2008) created a Boondocks pilot for the , but found great difficulty in making the series acceptable for network television. Hudlin left the project after the Fox deal fell through, although McGruder and Sony Television were contractually bound to continue to credit him as an executive producer. , president of Adult Swim and executive producer for and , stumbled across the pilot and declared it "too networky". He then ordered a 15-episode season and told McGruder to "just tell stories". The series has a loose connection with the continuity of the comic strip, though during the final year of the strip McGruder made a point to try to synchronize both. He introduced Uncle Ruckus into the strip, and the comic-strip version of Riley's hair was braided into cornrows to match the character's design in the series. During Season 1, McGruder put the strip on a 6-month hiatus beginning in March 2006. He did not return to the strip the following November, and the strip's syndicate, , announced that it had been cancelled. Both the comic strip and the cartoon were influenced by McGruder's love of anime and manga. He cites and as sources of inspiration for the series' fight scenes. The opening sequence of Season 1 contains similarities to that of Samurai Champloo. Some of the humor is based on the characters' anime-style movements. In 2006, McGruder explained in an interview, "We now have a Japanese anime studio named Madhouse to help us out"; but at some point, the deal with Madhouse fell through. Instead, , an -winning South Korean studio, handled the animation for season two onward. As a result, the following seasons of the series have more detailed animation, as well as minor updates for most of the character designs. On March 21, 2014, it was revealed via press release from Adult Swim that The Boondocks TV series would be renewed for a fourth, although final, season. However, it was also revealed that the fourth season would also take place without the involvement of the series creator Aaron McGruder. The reason cited for the split between the creator and the company was a disagreement over the production schedule of the fourth season. The first episode of the fourth season aired on April 21, 2014. The series concluded on June 23, 2014. At the 2019 Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Sony Pictures Animation announced it would be producing a reimagining of The Boondocks. On June 12, 2019, McGruder and voice actor John Witherspoon were confirmed to be returning to the series. Description The show depicts Huey Freeman and his younger brother Riley, two young children who have been moved out of the with their grandfather Robert to live with him in the predominantly white suburb of Woodcrest (implied to be in ). This relates to McGruder's childhood move from Chicago to , a diverse Maryland suburb. The title word "boondocks" alludes to the isolation from primarily African-American urban life that the characters feel, and permits McGruder some philosophical distance. Huey is a politically perceptive devotee of black radical ideas of the past few decades, and is harshly critical of many aspects of modern black culture. Riley, on the other hand, is enamored of gangsta rap culture and the "thug"/bling-bling lifestyle. Their grandfather Robert is a firm disciplinarian, veteran, and former , although he is primarily concerned with chasing after money and women. Another prominent character is Uncle Ruckus, an old and racist black man who has a strong hatred of his own race. The Freemans' neighbors are local assistant district attorney Tom DuBois (a reference both to and ) and his white wife Sarah. Their young biracial daughter Jazmine is very sweet but naive, and she is Huey's only friend his age. Much like the comics it was based on, The Boondocks satirizes many cultural and social issues, although by exploiting the far more lenient censorship it gets as an adult cartoon on late-night TV, the humor is far more over-the-top, and throws political correctness out the window. It has attracted a lot of controversy for its use of racial slurs and stereotypes. Reception The Boondocks has received critical acclaim. In January 2006, it was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 37th s alongside , , , and . The show won a in 2006 for the episode "Return of the King". As of July 8, 2010, The Boondocks had a 72 rating on , based on 21 reviews and an 8.4/10 (Based on 9,469 votes) on . named it the 94th-best animated series, describing it as a sharp satirical look at American society. Critic Jeffrey M. Anderson of the said, "Each episode is beautifully crafted, with an eye on lush, shadowy visuals and a pulsing, jazz-like rhythm... the show is almost consistently funny, consistently brilliant, and, best of all, compulsively watchable." Mike Hale of the has considered The Boondocks among the top television shows of 2010, citing "Pause" as a "painfully funny" satire of being portrayed as a superstar actor and a leader of a homoerotic cult. In 2013, IGN placed The Boondocks as number 17 on their list of Top 25 animated series for adults. Controversy The Boondocks has been a frequent lightning rod for controversy since its comic-strip debut in 1999, with noting, "Fans and critics of The Boondocks loved and hated the strip for the same reasons: its cutting-edge humor and unapologetic, sometimes unpopular, views on various issues, including race, politics, the and the ." Numerous outlets predicted the show would encounter controversy prior to its November 2005 debut, due to its casual use of the word "n*gga." According to an article in , references to Rosa Parks were removed from one of the series' first completed episodes within a week of her death. In 2006, the Reverend protested the first season episode "Return of the King", for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s character's use of the word "n*gga," saying " must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures." Cartoon Network released a statement in response defending McGruder: "We think Aaron McGruder came up with a thought-provoking way of not only showing Dr. King's bravery but also of reminding us of what he stood and fought for, and why even today, it is important for all of us to remember that and to continue to take action," the statement said. The episode was later awarded a for being "an especially daring episode." During The Boondocks Season 2, two episodes were removed from broadcast without any official word from the network. Originally slated to air on November 16 and December 17, "The Hunger Strike" and "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" were both heavily critical of BET. An exclusive clip of "The Hunger Strike" was given to HipHopDX.com in late January 2008, before both episodes were included in full on the Season 2 DVD release that summer. An anonymous source close to the show told HipHopDX.com that they heard BET had been pressuring Sony (the studio behind The Boondocks) to ban the episodes and threatened legal action. Cartoon Network publicly stated that "...neither Turner nor Adult Swim were contacted by BET, Ms. Lee or Mr. Hudlin." However, BET's parent company, Viacom, did threaten legal action against Sony if said episodes were broadcast to air in the United States. was reportedly infuriated by his depiction in the Season 3 episode "Pause", first aired in June 2010, although he has officially given no response. The episode stars Winston Jerome, a parody of Perry, a "closeted, cross-dressing cult leader whose love of the Christian faith is a mask for his true sexuality," in what the described as "one of the sharpest public criticisms of Perry." Soon after the episode aired, Perry got in touch with executives at and "complained loudly" about the episode, threatening to rethink his relationship with the company. In 2010, magazine named The Boondocks as sixth out of 10 of the Most Controversial Cartoons of All Time. Home releases All four seasons have been released on DVD, both individually and as a box set spanning the entire series. Seasons 1 and 2 are presented in the original 16:9 aspect ratio used for production, rather than the 4:3 ratio achieved by cropping the image to fit television screens in use at the time of their original airing. The 16:9 ratio was used for broadcasts of Seasons 3 and 4 and is preserved on the DVD sets. The Boondocks was also released on and . Season 1 was also released on . All four seasons are also available for on-demand viewing on . Gallery Promotional Boondocks Series Reboot.jpg Also see *List of episodes *List of characters *Comic strip External links *Official site at Adult Swim. Includes video clips and some full episodes (may require cable log-in). *Official site at Sony Pictures Television References T Category:TV series